On tattoos and turning 40

A few months ago I shared with Sarah (my amazing heart mama friend who hosted us in Kentucky) that I would be turning 40 this month. She asked if I would be interested in getting a tattoo with her while we were in KY to commemorate the big birthday. Um, YES! She had an awesome idea for hers, so I began pondering what I wanted to get.

I don't think it's any secret that I spend a lot of my time and energy worrying about our oldest boy. Since Elijah has been born, I have been given a handful of promises that I need to constantly remind myself about. I KNOW that everything is going to be ok.. Elijah assured me of that the day he was born, the first time I saw him, through unspoken words. I looked at him and I knew. His dark eyes told me, "It's going to be ok, Mama!" I have also been given this promise through a few dreams which I have cherished every day since I had them. He is going to be ok. We are going to be ok.

But I am human and sometimes I get caught up in fear and consumed with worry. I shake myself and say, "The promises! Remember the promises!" It is sooo hard sometimes. I have always had the thought that I should tuck a piece of paper with a few of my favorite Bible verses in my pocket every single day. At first I thought I would get Hebrews 11:1 as a tattoo, as this is one of my go-to faith verses. Then I had an idea.

I searched through my photos and found a picture I had taken of Elijah's heart monitor minutes into his recovery after open heart surgery #2 (the big one). I traced his heartbeat from the monitor and and added a cross at the end. It's my reminder of Elijah's strength and steadfastness, combined with my faith in the promises God has given to me/us that we are going to survive this journey! I chose to put it in a place where I can see it often, and only a few weeks after having it I can say that it has already helped me. I LOVE IT.

A few people have said to me, "But what about a Sammy tattoo?!" And I reply with, "God gave me a natural Sammy tattoo!" It's true! Sammy and I have strangely similar (and very unique) birthmarks and I love this so much. Mine is on the side of my knee and Sammy's is on the side of his elbow. As a kid, I hated my birthmark, but now I LOVE it. It's another little special connection I have with my awesome Sammy Jammy. (Sammy's is on the left and mine is on the right.)

My boys have given me a three-day birthday extravaganza, involving time with the little boys, time alone, time with just Dan and time with all of my boys. Every moment has been filled with tons of love. My boys are the best! Today the four of us went to Valleyfair and had such a fun time. I have loved the past few days and even though 40 seems a little bit scary, I'm ready to tackle it. The decade of forty is going to be AWESOME.

Snow!

I don't know if he will remember this, but my dad told me about a vivid dream he had about Elijah a couple months before he was born. He told me that he woke up from the dream knowing three things about our little boy: 1. He would be chubby, 2. He would be extremely stubborn/strong-willed, and 3. He would adore snow.

At the time, I thought "Ha!" about number one. We were having a baby with serious heart defects! We had done our research, so we knew that heart babies typically were not described as being "chubby." Despite the odds, Elijah was always a chubby baby, so that part of my dad's dream was surprisingly right.

Regarding number two, well, we all know that "strong-willed" is one of the main words used to describe Elijah. :)

And number three, the love for snow, I have wondered about since my dad told me about the dream. It was confirmed Christmas weekend that that was right on, too!

I think it's pretty cool that his dream was so accurate.



Elijah certainly did adore being in the snow. He didn't want to move around at all, which wasn't a huge surprise, but he did NOT want to go back inside.



I went inside after a while and I could hear Elijah yelling, "MAMA INSIDE!" I opened the door to say hello and he said, "Shut da door, Mama! Mama in!" He saw his fun little snowy world as being "in." I thought it was cute that he wanted me to come "inside" to the outside.



And how cute is it that this snowsuit was Dan's snowsuit as a little munchkin?



And this was his unhappy face upon learning that it was time to go inside.

Dreams

Do you like Elijah's unintentional Zac Efron hair 'do?

Around 3:00 this morning, Elijah woke up screaming bloody murder. It was one of those alarming screams that would send any parent flying out of bed in about a half a second. When I got to him, he was on his hands and knees in his crib and he was trembling. He stopped screaming once I picked him up, but continued to shake and whimper for a bit as I rocked him back to sleep. Obviously he was having some sort of nightmare or night terror. It makes me so sad to think that bad thoughts are already running through his little two-year-old brain. I keep wondering what he could have been dreaming about. Was Larry the Cucumber attacking him with a hairbrush? Was a doctor chasing him with an enormous needle?

At least I got to rock him back to sleep, which is something I haven't done in a while. He's getting so big that it's hard to get us both situated comfortably in the rocking chair. Elijah, stop growing up!!

I guess the bad dreams shouldn't surprise me since Dan and I are both crazy vivid dreamers. I can still remember some bad dreams I had as a very little girl in vivid detail. It looks like Elijah is following in my footsteps.


This has been happening in our house a lot lately. Elijah loves playing his "'tar" while singing to his animal friends (who are very good listeners).


Chattin' on the phone while checking some things out on the computer.

p.s. H1N1 vaccinations STILL not available. PATIENCEPATIENCEPATIENCEPATIENCE.

Imagination

(Sarah, I got this idea from your recent post!)

Elijah seems to have such a creative mind and a vivid imagination. Of course, since he can't talk yet I don't know this for sure, but it really seems to be the case. He constantly jabbers to himself in an animated tone with lots of inflection and unique sounds. Sometimes his fingers/hands talk to each other, sometimes they talk to him and sometimes they talk to objects around him. His hands like to "sit" in his toy cars/trucks while his fingers talk to him as they drive. I cannot imagine what must be going on in his mind, but it is so interesting to watch and listen to all of this.

I wonder if this sort of thing is genetic. If Elijah is anything like me, he is in for a lifetime of weirdness. :) I discovered my group of imaginary friends at a very young age: Mimi, Tenspeed, Vodka (no idea where I got this name as a 2-year-old) and Susie. To this day I could draw a picture of what each of them look like, in detail. Mimi was the leader and she occasionally liked to drive the other three across the country in her white van to go on vacations. While they were away on their journeys I would get sad and miss them. My little team of invisible pals was the first sign that my imagination was a little bit crazy. Then other things came.. When my dad would take a few minutes too long in the store (which was and still is common...right, family?), I would sit in the car and imagine Bert and Ernie's evil twins coming into the store through the ceiling in a spaceship and abducting him. By the time he got back to the car I would be sobbing crazily, believing he was already a resident of Evil Sesame Street. I have also always had super vivid, crazy dreams. I still vividly remember dreams I had when I was three years old. Now, years later, and having practiced a lot, I can do some pretty cool stuff in my dreams. I can control dreams...I can go skydiving and flying whenever I want to, and I can do lots of other things that I won't mention because you'll really think I'm insane. I once even talked to Elijah as an adult in a dream (very cool)!

Now that you all know I'm crazy.. I've been wondering lately if Elijah will have a vivid imagination, too, and if some day he will be telling his friends and family about the time he convinced himself that his mom was a vampire.

Did anyone else have imaginary friends? Anyone else whose imagination convinces them of impossible things? Am I the only weird one? Share your stories! (If there are no stories, I'll check myself in..)

Really quick...

I wanted to post very quickly while I have a second. Today is my wonderful husband's birthday, so I thought I'd publicly say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAN! Thank you for loving me and for walking close by my side on this crazy journey. I would not have been able to go through such huge challenges with anyone but you. I love you and I hope you have a great birthday.

I have not had a single moment to read all of your blogs this week, so I apologize for that. It has been a totally insane week for me, and next week will be, too. I'll start getting back to normal on the 13th, when this project doesn't consume my life anymore.

There is one last cool thing I want to share while it is still fresh in my mind. Every once in a while I will have a vivid dream or a thought that I just KNOW has meaning. I had one this morning that was awesome. It wasn't really a dream. It was more like a picture I saw in my head that was connected to a bunch of vivid feelings and descriptions. The picture I saw was of Elijah as a 5(ish)-year-old, sitting in a room with another kid about his age who had some obvious physical challenges. The vivid feelings I had about this snapshot were that Elijah will probably need to be in some sort of special education classes, at least for a while, once he starts school. As I looked more closely at the picture, it made me genuinely happy to know this. I could see that he will be helping out the other kids in an immense way. I can't explain it very well, but there is something about his personality and spirit that will greatly benefit kids who have even greater challenges than he does and who may not be as accepted by the other kids. The next thought was that not only is this totally awesome, but that in the long run Elijah will be a much more accepting, non-judgmental person because of it all. It makes me so happy to have these positive images and thoughts in my head and on my heart.

I must go! Have a great weekend, everyone. xoxoxo